Former Fulton doctor, office manager charged with defrauding Medicare after he moved to Vegas

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A former Fulton doctor and his office manager were charged today with defrauding Medicare by billing for medical services he never performed.

Dr. Mahesh Kuthuru, 43, of Las Vegas; and Bonnie Meislin, 42, of Utica, were charged in a federal grand jury indictment with engaging in a scheme to defraud Medicare at Upstate Pain Management's offices in Utica and Fulton.
Meislin was charged in January with defrauding health insurers out of more than $100,000 by routinely billing when there was no doctor in the office.

Kuthuru had not been charged until today, when he was arrested in Las Vegas. He's scheduled to be arraigned March 12 before U.S. Magistrate Therese Wiley Dancks.

After he opened Desert Pain Management in Las Vegas, Kuthuru only returned sporadically to Upstate Pain Management's offices in Fulton and Utica, federal prosecutors said.

Kuthuru was also indicted on a charge of unlawful distribution of prescription medicines Oxycodone, Oxycontin, Methadone and Morphine Sulphate.

A criminal investigation began in May 2011, when officers with the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, state police and Fulton police went to Upstate Pain Management's Fulton office based on information that Kuthuru was prescribing large amounts of narcotics from Las Vegas for patients in Fulton.

The officers found no doctors, no nurse practitioners, no physician assistants and no nurses, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent. They found only staff members with no medical training, the affidavit said.

The officers found "several hundred" prescriptions that had been filled out by the non-medical workers and that were to be sent to Las Vegas for Kuthuru to sign, the affidavit said.

Even after Kuthuru moved to Nevada, his unlicensed, non-medical staff in Fulton was routinely receiving patients, conducting drug-screening and handing prescriptions for narcotics to patients while he was living in another state, according to the FBI.

In an email to The Post-Standard and Syracuse.com two weeks ago, Kuthuru denied all wrongdoing. He blamed "mistaken assumptions" by investigators with the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement for the criminal charges.

"I have always tried to practice in an ethical manner and to the best of my knowledge, training and abilities," he wrote.